Stringer EW lathe

[alan smith 6Participant @alansmith6]

Hi all EW slaves.

I`m getting the EW bit between my teeth and am planning to make one or more if anyone is interested of the change wheel guard. As with most EW stuff, this was an extra and my meagre pocket money in 1953 prevented me from taking advantage of this.

I plan to have the guard fabricated from sheet steel as making a pattern for a cast aluminium one would be expensive. If possible I would like to look at an original to take dimensions if anyone has one in their posession. I`m even willing to throw cash at folk if they have any genuine spare bits for sale! Please mail me with offers.

Ian T has kindly offered to email me the Martin Cleeve articles and I`m looking forward to receiving them in due course. I will find my stringer correspondence and have it available for anyone who is interested but don`t hold your breath, I`ve squirreled the stuff away but forgotten where it is

I will post photos of my new lathe when I get back to the UK. It`s a very late model with gap bed and no EW cast into the bed nor the "EW logo plate with serial no." that was rivetted to the bed near the leadscrew handle on the earlier models.

Alan

[alan smith 6Participant @alansmith6]

Hi EW Stalwarts,

This thread seems to have become cold, however I`ve found the EW information that I promised to let you all have. There is a brochure from 1953 and a price list showing all the accessories, plus other information.

The gap bed seems to have been an optional extra and not necessarily a later version of the lathe. the model that I bought in 1953 had the EW initials cast into the front of the bed and the J F Stringer name plate with the serial No stamped on was rivetted to the right hand side if the front of the bed as per the photo on the brochure.

The lathe that I bought on fleabay is a gap bed model with no EW cast into the bed and no name plate. there are no rivet holes where the nameplate would have been so there was never a name plate attached to the lathe.

From the EW lathe photos that have been posted none have the original countershaft and neither has mine, so I`m going to re create the original type of countershaft for my lathe.

The information includes the recommendation that the countershaft pulley run at 400 rpm, which means that the spindle speeds would be 800,400 and 200 rpm. The backgear reduction is 5 to 1 which means that the slowest spindle speed would be 40 rpm.

Also included is a list of all the Martin Cleeve articles as the information that Ian T kindly provided was not complete.

The price list includes an accessory for hand screwcutting which I believe was a handle to attach to the countershaft pulley so that the spindle could be rotated by hand.

I hope that you all find this new information useful, feel free to download.

Alan

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Hi Alan (and other "EW Stalwarts&quot,

Thanks very much for this info – a few very useful nuggets there – and nice to have anyway.

I do aplogise for my inaction – but we've had a few things going on that have somewhat limited my 'EW' time recently. However, I will have a look at the Martin Cleeve list included in your postings and see what I've got in my ME collection. If I have them, I will get them scanned and off to everyone on the EW mailing list that I've sent MC material to so far.

Regards to you and the other EWS!

IanT

[IanTParticipant @iant]

I've sent the first new scans out this evening but if I've missed any EW owner who has contacted me previously (Keith?) – please PM me.

Regards

Ian T

[Ruaidhri MurphyParticipant @ruaidhrimurphy46564]

Thanks guys!

Things in Dublin a little fraught for some time, so not much progress.

Quick "by the way" – I tried out rust removal on some waste, then the change wheels. Worked a treat. Found it on YouTube. Some Aussie bloke wot restores cars: uses 9 parts water with 1 part molasses, and soaks for a week or so, then a light scrub. I was astonished – it sounded more like somthing from the Goon Show

Mate found the final missing jaw for "The Burnerd" 3 jaw which came with it, so I'm a happy bunny again.

Regards,

Ruaidhrí

[alan smith 6Participant @alansmith6]

Hi EW Grafters,

I have added a file of photos of the EW lathe that I bought on Fleabay. I partially stripped it down yesterday and was apalled at the abuse it has suffered at the hands of some insensitive person.

The bed has been used as an anvil and bears the indentations which I had to stone down before I could remove the tailstock. There is a small chunk of the rear of the bed which has been knocked away and saw marks on the edge of the bed in the vicinity of the chuck jaws. Have a look at the photos.

I will smooth down the bed by gentle stoning and then scrape the surface with a "fishtail" pattern that I used to do on machine beds when I was an apprentice sixty years ago, unless i have lost the skill!

I'm designing an alternative clutch system which will be simpler than Martin's design and forgoes drilling a mounting hole in the lathe bed.

I found the number 5 stamped on the face of the bed close to the rear end.

More Later

Alan

Edited By alan smith 6 on 19/07/2012 22:36:01

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Thanks for the photos Alan, I've not seen a gap-bed version of the EW before.

However, I'm sure your lathe can be brought back to good order and hope you will post some 'before and after' pictures for us. Also look forard to seeing your clutch mods eventually.

Regards,

Ian T

[maurice bennieParticipant @mauricebennie99556]

hi all, in teresting reading all your efforts to fix your lathes .I made ,long ago, a clutch from the front hub of an old autocycle, Icant now remember exactly how but the back plate was clamped to the pulley and the lever which opperated the shoes was pushed on by a cone which slide along a shaft ,this was opperated by a hand lever. Sorry I can not rember more but it must have been in the late forties or early fifties .I know it worked very well ,perhaps I hope I have sown a seed of an idea for you all to have a go at. .

Best wishes Maurice .

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

The electric clutch from a car AC unit would go well on the counter shaft of a lathe, it should be well up to a lathe up to (maybe beyond) 1hp. You would need a low voltage supply, 12V, ie., a battery charger, this could also supply power for a low voltage light. Ian S C

[alan smith 6Participant @alansmith6]

Hi EW Grafters,

I`ve been looking at the photos of EW lathes posted and would ask all EW owners that have not posted to add photos of their lathe so that we can see any variations that exist.

I have been looking into the slow feed design and have made preliminary sketches, overcoming the design challenges, but the sketches are not in a state to publish yet.

I remember the frustrations of owning the EW lathe back in 1953. my main gripes were that the lathe is too small to do any really useful work. I have to say here that I`m not a modeller and prefer to work on full size projects such as vintage cars. so here are my other criticisms:

1/ There is no slow feed for the saddle.

2/ There is no calibrated collar at the leadscrew handle.

3/ The calibrated collars on the cross and top slide are not adjustable.

I did modify the cross and top slide calibrated collars so that they could be easily rotated and am designing a calibrated collar for the leadscrew that will not impede the removal of the tailstock and as you know the design for the slow feed is in the pipeline.

My philosophy in the modification of historic items is that any modification made should be reversible which rules out any extra holes or modifications to original castings.

I`ve been looking into Martin`s designs and am amazed how prolific he was, basically he just scaled down the designs that he made for his Myford and added them to the EW.

I`m not knocking Martin, he was a clever engineer and a leading light of his time, I think that we should look into the social climate of the fifties and sixties to get an insight into the mind set of the male population, I know, I was there.

Generally in the fifties people did not benefit from the huge range of activities that exist nowadays the range of activities was limited for example to watching football on Saturdays at the ground not on TV where the programmes were very unsophisticated ranging from "Muffin the mule" to "Henry Halls Guest Night". There was the Pub of course where one could drink lashings of watery beer and stagger home. The other way to spend the excess time on their hands and keep clear of "her indoors" was to beaver away in little sheds producing all sorts of things that modellers do.

Nowadays our male population spend most of their spare time watching TV football and have no time to spend on modelling projects. If they need a piece of machinery they just go out and buy it and probably have more than one machine, it`s not a big deal as it was then, where small cheap machines were upgraded to be all dancing and singing such as the EW, which apart from a drilling machine, would probably be the only piece of machinery in the workshop and so had to do everything.

When I looked at the front cover of ME 2926 which depicts the modified EW lathe my impression was that it looked like an overdressed Christmas Tree. I will continue on this theme shortly and review Martins modifications to the EW in the light of the needs of the 21st Century modeller.

More anon,

Alan

 

Edited By alan smith 6 on 19/08/2012 16:23:32

[alan smith 6Participant @alansmith6]

Hi EW Grafters,

Herewith the cover photo of ME 2926 20th June 1957.

[alan smith 6Participant @alansmith6]

Hi EW grafters,

Looking through the ME magazines which have the Martin Cleeve articles in them I was astonished to find a picture of the EW leadscrew nut in an article by "Exactus" who wrote weekly articles under the title of "In the ME Workshop" which seemed to be in every edition. This article in ME 2972 was part 4 of a series of four articles penned under the title of "Fine feed for the EW.

In this article he proposed splitting the leadscrew nut and fitting a rack for moving the saddle as on conventional lathes.

What we need to do is to find out when the other three parts of the article were published so that they can be scanned and sent out to those interested.

I think that this is a job for Ian T to find out which issues the ME the 3 other parts of the article were published in as I don't have an index for the ME.

Alan

[IanTParticipant @iant]

I'll look into this Alan.

By the way – by an odd coincidence – I was looking yesterday through some ME back issues at the build instructions for a Gauge '3' Flying Scotsman that I am working on (albeit very, very slowly) and realised that these issues also had some more Martin Cleeve articles on building a new slotted cross-slide for the EW. There is an interesting method of making the V-ways. So I was already going to distribute these to you all.

I have an EW Boring table and I am thinking of making this my main cross-slide (making a very simple new mount for the topslide that would slide off quickly). I am currently working on a small powered verticle milling spindle to clamp to the back of the EW lathe in place of the tailstock. The same mounting will also quickly adapt to go on my old Super 7 (bed or crosslide) too for any slightly larger jobs.

Anyway – I will see what I have on Exactus over the next day or two and get back to you all.

Regards,

IanT

PS Is it time to start a new Stringer EW Lathe '2' thread?

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Alan, the articals are in 2968, 2969, 2970, and 2972. It looks like Exactus’s works could actually be worth being republished, maybe in ME, or as a separate book(perhaps it was). Ian S C

[alan smith 6Participant @alansmith6]

Ian, Well done!

If you have the original ME`s would it be possible to scan and add them to the forum? I may have them back in the UK but if so, do not have a scanner there. Perhaps Ian T could do this if you are not able to. Frankly I can`t wait to see Exactus`s proposals.

Alan

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Thank you for the ME references Ian SC – that will make life easier when I come to check my collection.

Alan, I think there will be issues of copyright if I post them in public – it's a bit different from sending copies privately to one or two friends. I'll get them out to you and the usual suspects of course (e.g. the other EW Owners) if I have them.

Regards,

Ian T

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Sorry no copies here. Regarding copywrite David C may help here as to the state of (c).
Ian S C

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

I have uploaded copies of the magazines as PDFs.

2968

2969

2970

2972

Sorry about the quality but I did not scan them.

Copyright – As far as I know, Exactus was Edgar Westbury so we own the copyright.

regards David

Edited By David Clark 1 on 21/08/2012 22:17:51

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Thanks, David … you are a star !

I must confess that I don't have an EW lathe; but have admired them ever since I first saw these articles. … If I recall correctly, there are some good "re-useable" ideas in the Exactus series.

MichaelG.

Edited By David Clark 1 on 21/08/2012 22:18:10

[alan smith 6Participant @alansmith6]

Hi EW Stalwarts,

Amazingly the thread seems to have been invigorated and it was a masterstroke by David Clark to send us PDF copies of the ME`s containing the EW article by Exactus.

Exactus provides an elegant solution to the slow feed dilemma and it is relatively easy to manufacture. I`m not keen on drilling the holes in the lathe bed for mounting the rack but they are small and not in a critical area and can be hidden if the lathe were to be reinstated to its original form.

Martin`s philosophy was to have a slow feed and the screwcutting set up for his favourite thread at the same time. If we follow Exactus`s design this cannot be done and the slow speed set up will have to be removed before the screwcutting gear train can be set up. To folk that do little screwcutting this is not a problem and Exactus wins hands down. His set up is for a feed of .002" per rev of the spindle. If a coarser feed is rquired then we should look into a ratchet that can can be slid up and down the arm to cater for different sized gear wheels. We will also have to fit a screwcutting dial as the leadscrew nut is no longer permanently engaged.

Just an Idea! what if we fit a Cleeve type clutch and an Exactus feed, food for thought.

A note to Ian T: Your idea to add a vertical miller to the EW lathe bed seems interesting and I look forward to seeing it in the Metal. You mentioned that you intend to use your boring table as the default cross slide, I did this half a century ago but found that the width of the boring table hindered the travel of the tailstock ie. When using a Slocombe drill to machine a centre hole in a short length held in the chuck.

Alan

Edited By David Clark 1 on 21/08/2012 22:18:36

[IanTParticipant @iant]

Not just the Exactus articles – but all the rest of the magazines too!

A real treat and good read – thank you David. Saved me a job digging them out.

I hadn't thought of the tailstock problem Alan – I will have to look at it and consider the pros and cons.

In terms of the milling attachment – I've just spent 2-3 hours fly-cutting some aluminium scrap down to usable (square) dimensions and as usual the actual cutting didn't take too long – the set-up took most of the time. I'll post some photos once I get a bit further down the road. The work isn't that difficult and hopefully the end-result will be a very useful bit of kit. I have larger machines down the shed but the EW and this little device might be enough to keep me inside the house (and still productive) once it gets cold again.

Obviously I'm not trying to make car parts on my EW! But for a Gauge '3' (2.5&quot loco it's perfectly usable.

Regards,

IanT

[David Clark 13Participant @davidclark13]

Hi There

I may have more PDFs of EW articles.

I don't have time to sort out issue numbers so perhaps someone would like to search the index?

The magazines were complete scans, quicker to put it all up rather than split pages out.

regards David

[dcostaParticipant @dcosta]

Hello David.

Using ME_Indexes **LINK** I found 21 records using the criterion " EW " in the title field.
Is this what you are looking for?
I hope the Volume, Issue, Year, Date and Page fields are enough and also that the grid is readable.

    volume..issue…year….date….page
    116…..2926….1957….20-Jun…884
    117…..2929….1957….11-Jul…42
    117…..2931….1957….25-Jul…112
    117…..2936….1957….29-Aug..307
    117…..2941….1957….3-Oct…476
    117…..2942….1957….10-Oct..506
    117…..2952….1957….19-Dec..831
    118…..2955….1958….9-Jan…53
    118…..2958….1958….30-Jan..148
    118…..2969….1958….17-Apr…501
    118…..2972….1958….8-May…605
    118…..2974….1958….22-May…658
    122…..3077….1960….30-Jun…783
    123…..3081….1960….28-Jul…106
    123…..3087….1960….8-Sep….287
    123…..3089….1960….22-Sep…351
    123…..3091….1960….6-Oct….434
    123…..3093….1960….20-Oct…475
    123…..3094….1960….27-Oct…521
    123…..3097….1960….17-Nov…625
    124…..3108….1961….2-Feb…137

Best regards
Dias Costa

Edited By dcosta on 21/08/2012 23:59:24

Edited By dcosta on 22/08/2012 00:01:50

[alan smith 6Participant @alansmith6]

Touche` Ian T,

You can`t jump in your loco and drive down to the shops for a pound of sugar!

David, thank you for substituting the correct pdf for ME 2972.

A worrying thought just occurred to me! how well will the ratchet function at 1500 rpm of the spindle as Martin suggested as the top speed for the EW? The ratchet system moves the leadscrew in a jerky manner not smoothly as when the leadscrew is turned constantly. I imagine that Exactus got inspiration for the ratchet from a shaper but on a shaper the feed does not occur when the tool is in the cutting position and the feed is much much slower.

Does anyone have any experience of ratchets working at high speed?

Alan

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Hi Dias

You also need to pick up 'Ned' and 'ETW' and "Westbury' and probably other search terms as well. – a man with one pen-name for each of his (many) areas of interest.

Neil

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